DIVERSITY

Should you hide your true self in order to progress? GC looks at some under-the-radar areas of diversity through the lens of NYU law professor Kenji Yoshino’s work on covering, and showcases GCs promoting LGBT diversity and social mobility through ground-breaking initiatives.

When Cara Pritchard left school at sixteen, she had no idea that a career as a solicitor in one of the UK’s best-known media companies, Guardian Media Group, awaited. She tells us about her in-house training contract and the support she has received from her boss, Sarah Davis.

Despite having worked in sectors often considered to be ‘macho’– oil and gas, beer, and construction – Mathew Flood describes himself as ‘out and proud and fairly loud’. He's now at Ingeus, but in 2013 he was inspired to found an LGBT diversity network at UK-headquartered infrastructure company Balfour Beatty, where he was general counsel of the services division.

Barry Matthews, director of legal affairs and third party sales at ITV, is one of the pioneers of the Legal Social Mobility Partnership, an alliance of law firms and in-house teams providing enriching legal work insight and skills training to year 11, 12 and 13 students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Insurance and financial services multinational Prudential Financial Inc, has a multifaceted diversity programme, reaching all levels of the company. Executive vice president and general counsel Susan Blount discusses how the legal team is involved.

GC explores what corporate counsel can do to further diversity
– in their in-house legal department, the wider organisation,
or throughout the business world. We pick the brains
of general counsel across the globe about programmes
they’ve pioneered or adopted to create a diverse
workplace. In the first in a series of case studies,
this issue we look at gender diversity.

In 2003, the Norwegian government put in place a voluntary quota for public companies to increase their female board representation to 40%. This became compulsory from 2008, and by 2009 affected companies had achieved full compliance. We discuss the thorny issue of quotas with Norwegian corporate counsel and board member Synne Homble.

The tech industry is notoriously male-dominated, but industry giants like Ericsson are out to change all that. Chief legal officer and head of group legal affairs Nina Macpherson discussed how the legal function can join in the debate.

As part of its ‘Breakthrough’ initiative to foster female talent, Lloyds Banking Group gave corporate real estate counsel Lesley Wan the job of establishing a bank-wide mentoring programme for women. Her programme is now seen as best practice for other mentoring initiatives at the bank, as well as a template for schemes at other big-name corporates.